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Apple Rumored to Be After Samsung Flash Memory
Steve Nixon writes "An unconfirmed report today from Reuters quotes an industry analyst firm iSuppli as saying that Apple plans to buy as much as 40 percent of Samsung's second-half flash memory output.
The NAND flash memory cards will be used in a new, 4 GB iPod Mini, which Apple would release in time for the holiday shopping season, the report stated. The current version of the 4 GB mini contains a hard drive. Apple's iPod Shuffle uses flash memory."
Flash memory is going to do wonders for both battery life and size. Maybe I'll buy one of the new iPod minis if the rumors are true.
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Having a 4GB iPod for $50 less thana full iPod seemed like a bad idea, but it worked. I'm wondering if using flash, which should increase price, will shorten the gap between the Mini and the low-end iPod. Then again, maybe apple wants people to notice the GB/price ratio and get the full-fledged iPod instead.
I don't get it.
And here's a great big reason why Apple doesn't support Ogg Vorbis (besides the fact that it doesn't do anything for you that MP3 doesn't), it's widely used for distributing music on bittorrent based sites, that is to say that it is widely used in piracy, and Apple doesn't need to get assfucked by the RIAA over iPod sales for a bunch of geeks, especially after the Grokster decision.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
disagree - battery life is paramount on portable devices as are size and weight. I tend to travel places where there is no place to plug in a charger. You should view any portable device as portable only when it has charge, so a device with less battery life is in a sense less portable.
Size and weight play into the opportunity cost of the device. I have to carry a lot of stuff when I'm traveling around. Music is nice to have, but am I willing to lose an entire pocket to it? Am I willing to have an additional something warm and heavy clunking against my thigh (whoa, I'm asking for it with that one). the lesser those size/weight/heat issues become, the more likely one is to consider the device worthy of occupying their luggage space.
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Anyway, yea, I would love to be enlightened
No problem.
1. ipods run MP3's natively. No encoding to a proprietary format (ATRAC) and losing quality as with minidisc.
2. "sonicstage sure, stupid program, but its easy" Meet iTunes. It's not stupid, it's quite awesome, and quite easy. And it's a great portal into a digital music store.
3. You have to use interchangeable discs. My iPod has 40GB. I have 5000 songs, over a dozen audiobooks, and now a dozen constantly synced podcasts on this thing. I drive a lot, and what I feel like listening to at any given moment can change frequently.
4. You can use ipods like portable hard drives. Because they are.
5. Apple engineering. Sorry, the iPods are a thing of beauty and great UI. This counts, A LOT.
6. Marketing. iPods are hip. MDs were never hip. Yeah, this counts as well. When you see white headphones, you know there's an ipod on the other end. Steve Jobs is fucking brilliant at marketing.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
320kbps MP3s are a fucking waste of diskspace and time. You gain nothing with a bitrate that high, a 192VBR would be much better.
And in case nobody has bothered to tell you or you're too ignorant to do your own research, there is no DRM on files you rip yourself, so I have no idea what you're talking about at the end there.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
yeah but hard drive's measure access time in milliseconds while ram accesses in nanoseconds. When you're playing hundreds of ~5 mB files access time is far more important than transfer rate.
Not to mention a flash iPod could be much smaller and weigh a lot less with much longer battery life.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
In case you haven't been around in the last year, the current minidisc players play mp3s. No encoding to other formats. Also, these have the ability to record in raw PCM stereo, with a mic. And upload it USB to your computer to edit.
That's great. But the guy asked why MDs never took off like ipods. MDs just added the feature you speak of DUE TO the popularity of mp3 players.
If you love DRM, enjoy. Not me.
iTunes DRM has never adversely effected me.
And yes, you can also use the new minidisc models as external USB storage drives. 1GB disc are about $6 each.
See above. I am not giving a state of the union on md's, I am explaining why they didn't take off like ipods.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.